When You Are Done
by Mala
Summary: Jason knows home is where the heart is...or, sometimes, simply where you rest your head.


Title: "When You Are Done"  
  
Author: Mala  
  
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com  
  
Fandom: "General Hospital"  
  
Rating/Classification: PG-13, Jason/?  
  
Disclaimer: Nope. Not my characters!  
  
Summary: Home is where the heart is...or simply where you lay your head to rest.  
  
"Masquerading as a man with a reason/My charade is the event of the season And if I claim to be a wise man, well/It surely means that I don't know." -Kansas  
  
A hop, skip, and a jump. It's something Grandmother would say, but he remembers it as the jet takes off. As he hops over the ocean and skips and finds himself on a battered motorbike jumping up a back country road.  
  
The air rushing past his ears is thicker than Port Charles air. Heavier. It weighs on his chest. The sheep are gray blurs...the fences brown lines gone narrow...and he wants to go and go and go. He started out in London, but the stink from the sewers and the lorries and the double decker buses was too much. Too much like the docks back home.  
  
He likes Italy better. France most of all, but he won't go there. Not now. So there's bottled water and his wallet in the saddlebags and he just rides.  
  
He can't hear their voices here. He's too far away from the yelling and the pointing and hearing how he's failed. He's too far away to care.  
  
"Uncle Jason, where are you going?"  
  
"I've gotta go, Michael." He hugged his son. *His* son, kissed his hair, tasted the medicinal children's shampoo, and said his only good-bye. "Take care of your brother," he added, seeing the little fists waving in the crib and turning before he could fall in love again and make it impossible to leave.  
  
He sent the jet back immediately. Meyer will probably tell Sonny where he is...and Carly will probably have Alcazar's men out looking for him...but it won't accomplish anything. It's too late now. Way too late.  
  
He rides for hours, until his legs are numb and his face whipped by the bitter English air and he doesn't even know where he is. He likes it that way. He's not caught between anyone. Not stuck somewhere.  
  
He won't know where he's going until he gets there.  
  
And he's not even surprised when it's a small town on the Cornish coast. Dotted with charming cottages, close to the water, and, again, full of sheep. He rides straight up the dirt road, to the last house. Nearest the cliffs. It faces outwards. The flowers in the beds are dead, withering, but there's a tire swing hanging from a tree branch. Something pretty American for this village.  
  
Like the woman standing at the very edge of the high bluff. A dark dot on the edge of his blurring vision. He kicks off the motor, leans the bike against the tree, giving the swing a half-hearted push as he makes his way up the gravel path.  
  
He's tired, so tired, but he notices that her dark hair is pulled back and her blue jeans are frayed and torn. She looks like a little girl who's been playing in the dirt. Except for the bare strip of skin between her belt and her blouse. And the way her eyes turn to him when he approaches.  
  
She shouldn't look at him that way. It'll be impossible to leave.  
  
"What took you so long?" she wonders, and he can just barely hear her over the sound of the water crashing against the rocks below. He never had problems hearing her. Especially when she screamed.  
  
"I...I had things to do." He shrugs off his jacket before he even knows he's doing it, drapes it around her bare shoulders. She still has no idea how to dress for the weather.  
  
"Are they done?" He doesn't answer. She pulls the jacket closed, nodding to herself like she's made up her own mind. "Okay."  
  
They stand there for a while, watching the sun dip into the horizon line. Maybe he'll push her on the tire tomorrow afternoon. Hop. Maybe tonight, he'll take her to bed. Skip. Maybe in a few days...he'll jump.  
  
When the last bits of light are gone, he tells her he would've figured her for London...for the fancy shops and a nice townhouse and a driver.  
  
"I've had enough of that...enough of that life." She shivers and winds her fingers up with his.  
  
He bets she still gets that expensive flowery body lotion shipped out to her. The one that used to stink up the penthouse like a department store perfume counter. And a lady from the village probably comes and cleans for her twice a week. Cooks, too.  
  
"Shut up." She takes him back to her cottage. The little house, lit with lanterns and candles, is full of the smell of fresh-baked cookies, possibly some kind of stew. He peeks into the tiny kitchen and there are pots and pans everywhere, something simmering on the back burner of the stove. "See...I've learned a few things."  
  
He smiles when he sees the laundry scattered all over the bedroom floor. Her skimpy underwear hanging from a rocking chair. "Not enough."  
  
Her lips taste like chocolate chips and batter. Her hands sliding beneath his shirt are cold, but by the time they push him down to the soft comforter spread across the feather bed, they're all warmed up.  
  
"JasonJasonJason," she chants against his throat.  
  
"*Brenda*." He says it just once.  
  
And it's too late to stop.  
  
No.  
  
No...it's exactly where he wants to.  
  
--end--  
  
March 9, 2004. 


End file.
